I'll pop back on briefly to respond to this, as maybe the first one who said "Goodbye"...
I am angry. This is true. If this had been a surprise, I would completely agree with your sentiment regarding rash decisions.
However...
As Fro mentioned earlier in this thread, this was not something that snuck up on us. Confident in STL's ability to come through or not, this was a possibility in the back of everyone's mind from the moment the arbitrator demanded $700 million in renovations to the Dome for 10 more years of lease.
In my particular case, this decision to leave the Rams is not made rashly. I concluded weeks ago that this would be my decision should the NFL decide that the one city with an actionable, publicly-funded stadium plan was the one they would screw out of their team. I never truly believed it would happen - it flies in the face of logic, particularly if you believe that the NFL gives any semblance of a shit about its host cities - but I did accept it as a possibility, and thought through my response.
I want to make a final quick note about civic pride. A lot of posters have stated that they don't understand how a fan of a team can care about what city the team is in, particularly in the era of HD cable, Internet streaming, etc. To them, I say that a core part of my identity - that which makes me who I am - is that I am a St. Louisan. While I moved away from the region years ago, St. Louis is still a major part of my very being, a trait I find fairly common among my fellow Missourians and a goodly amount of Midwesterners.
As St. Louis is a part of me, so too are the institutions - I'm proud to be connected, albeit by the randomly-decided-by-fate place of my birth, to the Cardinals, the Blues, the great universities, the Zoo, hell, even the Magic House and the Science Center. These are all parts of my DNA. The Rams were part of my DNA as well, as a sub-section of St. Louis.
So, when the Rams are taken away from St. Louis - and in such a manner, where it does not matter what the city does, it's not good enough because one man wants to make more money, and that same man napalms the city and region in a manner not only disrespectful, but downright spiteful - it's like part of my DNA is taken from me. The connection between the Rams and myself goes through that fact that St. Louis is such a big part of my identity, so when St. Louis and the Rams are no longer connected, neither are the rams and
@DCH.
I was 14 when the Rams came to St. Louis. I began following football because they arrived. Football was something I could share with my father - we had parts of a season ticket, and went to as many games a year as we could afford until I moved out of state. Those experiences, sharing gameday with my dad, sometimes other members of my family, are what made the Rams special. Sharing wins and (lots and lots of) losses with my friends and family in St. Louis, all of us reveling in this civic pride as embodied by the blue and gold, was what made me a Rams fan.
Now, that is gone. I suppose I could just think of the Rams as my favorite TV show and continue to watch, but what's the point of that? There's no real connection to the team anymore, for me. I can't share the experience of being a fan with the people closest to me, and even if I could, the connection isn't the same. It's no longer special. The civic pride part is gone, and that was the beating heart of my fandom.
One other thing (I know I'm rambling a bit, don't worry, I'll be gone soon) - there's a thin line between love and hate. It's much harder to go from loving something to being apathetic towards it than it is to go from loving to loathing. As much as I loved the Rams, in an instant that has turned to pure loathing. As with teams I've hated in the past, I have no issue with the players, but the Rams now stand for something in my mind that is diametrically opposed to quite a bit of what I hold dear. Truly, I am now the Enemy of Ram fandom, which is a shame, because I liked you all very much.
